Life On the Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

April 2007

SALUTING TEN YEARS AT THE LAKE

Breeding wood ducks on my dock; one of three pair, that day

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For the first 65 years of my life, I'd not seen a wood duck, but a couple of times I had come close. They are among the most elusive of the waterfowl. The green-winged teal is perhaps the most shy, along with the loon, but the wood duck just doesn't like people, or anything to do with them, except what is  put in your feeder. Then nuts, acorns, cracked corn have an aphrodisiac effect, at least from a feeding standpoint, and feeding and breeding seem somehow closely related. But I am getting away from my point, which is not having so much as glimpsed one, let alone two or four or eight, and how now I am visited with an abundance of the feathery creatures.

Oh, I'd come close. Up at the river, where for decades I had maintained a camp, I'd walk up into a recent clearcut that was trying hard to regenerate itself, and catch a faint glimpse of some bird or duck winging away, and out of the corner of my eye I'd catch a movement or color of something I'd call "wood duck," but I was never sure it was one. And usually the whirring sound was followed by a quacking protest from the birds or ducks at their loss of civil rights, or my personal invasion of their turf. So the wood duck kept out of my direct sight and the years passed. Once, I swore, I'd seen one on neighbor's rain-fed pond, but it so quickly disappeared that I soon convinced myself that it was a woodsy illusion. (Pun intended.)

Then I moved to the lake and began to see lots of them in spring, usually paired. There is nothing so sweetly domestic as a pair of ducks in the April, already mated and mating, she with eggs in hollow high above ground, and he soon to be banished to his club and buddies, all of them molting. But he'll be back.

I learned that the wood duck is the only duck with prehensile feet, which means that it can grasp a rail or a perch. Many do not believe this, including some neighbors on the lake (one of them a duck hunter, of all people, but let it ride) and others who have not learned to look at what may be found in the natural world most closely observed. And let that and them ride as well.

So I became multiply blessed in my old age. I have wood ducks coming out my ears, so to speak. Some days I have as many as four pair (that totals eight) in nervous residence in my yard, especially if I put out some special feed that my wife discovered in a nearby grocery store--a brand that says it is good for a range of songbirds, but neglects mentioning ducks, especially that most elusive (or formerly elusive) and beautiful one of them all, the super-colorful woody.

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There is more than one kind of flowering cherry tree, of course. Here is one from my neighbor's yard. (He is the one who lives in Seattle and visits here briefly and only occasionally. So I trespass over there for picture-taking purposes, whenever any thing beacons. Often it is  a duck, and most lately a gathering of double-crested  cormorants. (See below)

Hey, that dock used to be mine!

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Pretty, eh? The Japanese go into raptures about cherry blossoms in the spring, and travel many miles, often on foot, in order to view them, which they associate with life's ephemeral quality. And the blossoms, too, which last such a short time. Then they return home and to life's mundane routines. And so do we.

Here at the lake the cherry blossoms too are indeed beautiful, but the aftermath is a thick pink litter on the ground and in the Otter Fountain. And I shall rake them up (or not) and clean the fountain's four basins many times until the last mushy petal is gone, and then sigh reluctantly with feigned relief.

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Among the signs of spring are the big, showy red rhododendrons. The large ones last the longest. I don't know why the smaller, ground-level ones are so quick to wilt, but they do. The big ones hang on, hang in there.

Fishers are at the public access parking lot every morning now and must be catching fish, or else they'd move on. And my catch of rainbow trout is getting poorer. I think there must be a correlation.

Soon the Fish and Wildlife Department will plant our usual amount of hatchery rainbows--3,000. And then the fishing will target them--8-10 inchers, instead of the wonderful 13-15 inchers we are used to catching.

This will mark a return to reality.

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What are the signs of spring? Glad you asked.

The salmonberry bush in bloom, for one thing. An important one, too.

Nettles. At this early stage they are deemed edible, but I haven't, and won't, try them. But they look fresh and bright and light green.

What other signs? Willow newly leafed, alder leaves slowly unfurling. Red rhododendrons, daffodils, tulips white and red and yellow, broom, red leaf. The lone peach tree (starting its third year) bloomed early about three dozen pink flowers, but we do not expect it to bear--no bees, among other problems, but it looks sturdy and healthy.

Both apple trees are putting out leaves. Too early for blossoms, and a good thing, too, because (as I said above) no bees. A paucity of early bees. Articles in the newspapers about millions of bees simply lost to climate change.

Meanwhile, cold nights and days usually rising to less than 30 degrees F. But today is bright and clear, with the thermometer's needle nudging 60. We are thankful for the day's brief warmth.

Meanwhile the rainbow trout continue to hit. They are holdovers and measure 13.25 to 15.5 inches. This makes them good fighters, which take a long while to bring to the beach or the net. The gang of bait fishers at the public access parking lot directly across the lake from us is here every day now, in numbers. So they too must be catching fish fairly regularly.

It's not like I took a vow not to publish two wood duck pictures in a row, did I?

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All the ducks now are paired up in tight, domestic units. Usually, as seen above, the female leads the unit on its daily (hourly?) sorties, with the male docilely following. Woodies, mallards, lesser scaups. The mergansers and cormorants, however, are still grouped generically and show no signs of pairing. It is hard, if impossible, to tell a male from a female cormorant.

It is not important whether or not I can. But it is important that they can. Obviously they can; there are so many of them.

Trout fishing remains excellent for bait. Though there are daily midge hatches, with swallows in constant pursuit, the trout show no surface feeding signs. They are fat and sleek, and measure just over 13 inches on the average. Males show heavy coloration and I thought they might be shedding their milt, since they cannot spawn in the lake, so I lifted one out of the water and tried to strip him of his milt.

No luck. So the males must be absorbing it.

Note her contribution to our new dock!

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 he wood ducks are back!

They've been sighted over a week ago by Miriam, down in Lavender Cove, and over the weekend by my neighbors The Bergs, who live in Seattle but visit here many weekends and make canoe trips to various obscure corners of the lake. But I hadn't seen them and had been envious. (Green is not my color.)

But here they are--on the water's edge, on the lawn, and even up to the feeder. What memories they must have! They remember us and the special food we put out to bribe them.

(Picture was taken later the same day.)

And what about the "Year at the Lake Journal?" Where did it go? Well, things a decade dated are precisely that. My sense of discovery is different from then. So we are abandoning that effort and resuming the one of the past five years, a day to day accounting of life here on the lake.

A little more immediacy. We hope, folks.